One American songwriting legend – Rod MacDonald – and one Scottish songwriting legend-in-the-making – Findlay Napier – team up for a show at The Carleton on Tuesday, July 10th. Show time is 7:30 PM and, because we want to encourage everyone to take in this show, admission is only a suggested $10 at the door. These are two very accomplished, politically aware performers who definitely warrant your attention!

A Rod MacDonald concert is an intimate, authentic, inspirational and uplifting experience. From the moment Rod begins to sing he grabs his audiences and doesn’t let go. A renowned songwriter, a gifted vocalist and an engaging entertainer in full command of his artistry, his easy going demeanor resonates an appealing warmth and sincerity that quickly creates an intimate rapport with his audiences.

Throughout a 35-year performing career, Rod MacDonald has been entertaining audiences worldwide with his timeless ballads, modern folk songs, and his musical versatility. Possessing the heart of a troubadour, the soul of a poet and the voice of a virtuoso, he is as distinctive an entertainer as he is a songwriter. Known for his passionate interest in the events that shape our world’s societies, Rod is a prolific and poignant communicator who is regarded as, “one of the most politically and socially aware lyricists of our time.” All Music Guide

Among the more than two dozen artists who have recorded his works are Dave Van Ronk, Four Bitchin’ Babes with Christine Lavin, Shawn Colvin, Jonathan Edwards and Garnet Rogers. Rod’s albums No Commercial Traffic (re-released in 2014) and White Buffalo are regarded as “one of the towering achievements in modern folk music.” Boston Herald

A major part of the 80s Greenwich Village folk renaissance, He performed with Pete Seeger, Richie Havens, Tom Chapin, Dave Van Ronk, Suzanne Vega, Doc Watson, John Gorka, Emmylou Harris and frequently headlined at New York’s Speakeasy and Folk City clubs. His memorable performance at The Bottom Line of American Jerusalem, was heralded as a “defining moment in folk music history” when it became the opening song on Smithsonian Folkways reissue of the Fast Folk Musical Magazine. Smithsonian Folkways’s reissues include 21 of his songs.

As defined in the title of his remarkable 2015 solo debut VIP: Very Interesting Persons (No.2 in the Daily Telegraph’s top dozen folk albums that year), Scottish singer-songwriter Findlay Napier categorically commands musical VIP status.

Napier himself remains happy to identify as a folk singer – even if he does enjoy stretching the term’s already elastic parameters. “I do fit that one-guy-with-a-guitar template,” he says. As well as calling himself a folk singer, he simultaneously aspires to another, likewise timeless role: “I do love that old-fashioned, all-round idea of an ‘entertainer’ – I think it’s a brilliant thing,” he says. “But then that’s totally what the best folk singers are; they’ll have you in absolute hysterics, in between punching you in the gut – people like Loudon Wainwright, John Prine, Michael Marra: that’s the absolute pinnacle, as far as I’m concerned.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhtcHtbCjg